Season 3 of Amazon’s show is funnier than ever as it portrays a couple negotiating serious issues with a smirk.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/04/catastrophe-season-three-review-marriage/524592/
Sunday, April 30, 2017
The Handmaid’s Tale is the most horrific thing I have ever seen
https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/04/the-handmaids-tale-is-the-most-horrific-thing-i-have-ever-seen/
One of the most exciting new science fiction shows on the Web right now isn't exactly fun. The Handmaid's Tale, currently streaming its first three episodes on Hulu, may repulse you, incense you, or just make you cry. But like a good workout that makes your muscles burn, the hurt of watching this series eventually results in something great.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Outdoor Shows on Television for Those With Cabin Fever
Outdoor Shows on Television for Those With Cabin Fever
Subzero temperatures. Preposterous quantities of snow. Ice storms in places where road crews don’t normally stock salt. For many Americans, the only sane thing to do lately has been to stay inside.
The housebound might be tempted to fill the need for fresh air and open space vicariously, through their televisions, where entire channels are devoted to leisure and adventure that take place in the great wide open. But is this really a good idea? Let’s find out.
First stop: Outside Television. On that channel, affiliated with Outside magazine, you can find a show called “Outlook: Icons Revealed.” It is described as “an in-depth interview series profiling athletes, journalists, musicians and leaders in the outside world who have impacted the industry in a meaningful way.”
“Outlook” features casual visits with extremely fit people doing cool-looking things. Take, for instance, an episode on Donavon Frankenreiter, a professional surfer who is also a pretty good musician. We see him at home in Hawaii, enjoying what appears to be an idyllic life. Surfing. Watching his kids surf. Wearing shorts and T-shirts. Barbecuing. Eating fruit plucked right off the tree.
Perhaps, through your living room window, you can see your ice-encrusted car. When Mr. Frankenreiter says, “It’s so neat to get a coconut, open it up and drink out of it,” you’ve had enough.
So it’s over to the Outdoor Channel, where you might stumble on “Buccaneers & Bones,” a fly-fishing show whose fifth season begins Saturday afternoon. It takes place in the Bahamas. In the new season, Jimmy Kimmel and Jim Belushi join some fishermen to angle for bonefish off South Andros Island.
Jokes are made about the word “bonefish.” Mr. Belushi falls off the boat and into the pristine, presumably warm water. Outside your window, perhaps it’s snowing again, and suddenly the only thing more annoying than watching fly fishing in tropical temperatures is watching celebrities fly fishing in tropical temperatures.
Linger here long, and eventually you’ll be looking at an example of the Outdoor Channel’s other staple, a hunting show. “Hunt Masters.” “Bow Madness.” “Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild.”
The thing is, there’s a lot of whispering in these shows, since the cameras generally follow a hunter in pursuit who is describing strategy in a barely audible voice so as not to spook the beast or bird. If your nerves are already frayed from being imprisoned in your home by Old Man Winter, the incessant whispering could drive you over the edge.
“Talk in a normal voice!” you find yourself yelling as you throw a boot at the television. The very boot you should be putting on to go out and shovel your driveway yet again.
Don’t even think of stopping at the Travel Channel, where you’re in danger of encountering promotional spots for a new show called “Hotel Amazon,”about two men trying to build a luxury hotel in the Peruvian Amazon. Yes, as the show’s publicity says, they face poisonous snakes and thieving monkeys. But they don’t face the problem of how to get on top of your house to clear the snow before the roof caves in.
The warm-weather outdoor shows may be hard to take, but these channels also have an array of programs involving nature at its chilliest. Some cable systems offer the Ski Channel: nothing but skiers, ski resorts, ski competitions. Outside Television, too, is big on snow.
On one of its series, “Locals,” you can watch the skier Angel Collinson extol the virtues of her home turf, Utah, and make spectacular runs down backcountry slopes near Salt Lake City. On another, “Jeremy Jones’ Higher,” Mr. Jones, a snowboarder, can be seen tackling impossible-looking descents from peaks like the 13,770-foot Grand Teton in Wyoming.
The photography in these shows is often breathtaking, as is the fearlessness of the athletes.
“I thought that I would have been in this gripping ‘don’t fall here’ deal,” Mr. Jones says, describing the moment at the Grand Teton summit just before he began the harrowing run. “There was none of that. I just let go, and it was pure joy, and in the most precarious place I’d ever been in my life.”
“Pure joy” can be found in a frozen, snow-covered world? Maybe on TV, but outside your window, it’s sleeting again, and some passing car just skidded into your mailbox.
‘Deutschland 83′
SundanceTV to Screen German-Language Spy Drama ‘Deutschland 83′
BERLIN — SundanceTV is to co-produce and screen “Deutschland 83,” an 8-part series that will be the first ever German-language drama to be aired on a major U.S. network. It will be co-produced with UFA Fiction part of FremantleMedia International.
“Deutschland 83” is a coming-of-age story set against the real culture wars and political events of Germany in the 1980s. The drama follows Martin Rauch as a 24 year-old East German sent to the West as an undercover spy. He joins the West German army,and seeks to gather the secrets of NATO military strategy.
Created by Anna Winger and Joerg Winger, “Deutschland 83″ is executive produced by UFA Fiction’s Joerg Winger and Nico Hofmann and directed by Edward Berger and Samira Radsi.
“Deutschland 83 was born of a transatlantic relationship. Conceived at our German-American kitchen table in Berlin, written by an American with an international team, made in Germany with a diverse and remarkably talented cast and crew,” said the Wingers in a statement.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
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